RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has
pardoned the victim of a gang-rape whose sentencing to 200
lashes caused an international outcry, officials said on
Monday.

The victim's husband welcomed the news. "I'm happy and my
wife is happy and it will of course help lift some of her
psychological and social suffering," he told Reuters. "We thank
the king for his generous attention and fatherly spirit."

The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman was abducted and raped along
with a male companion by seven men last year.

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Ruling according to the strict Saudi reading of Islamic
law, a court sentenced the woman to 90 lashes for being alone
with an unrelated man and the rapists to jail terms of up to
five years.

The Supreme Judicial Council last month increased the
sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the
rapists to serve between two years and nine years in prison.

The royal decree appeared to be upholding the original
guilty verdict against the woman.

"The crime against this woman reached a disturbing level of
brutality," the king said in the decree, according to excerpts
read by Justice Minister Abdullah bin Mohammad al-Sheikh in a
telephone interview with the state-run television.

"Because the woman and that (man) who was with her had
suffered a level of torture and distress that was by itself
enough to discipline them ... We would like you to fold the
part of the case relevant to the two aforementioned."

In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino welcomed
the move: "This is a decision that King Abdullah needed to make
on behalf of Saudi Arabia, and we think it was the right one."

SIGNAL TO JUDGES

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said
Washington hoped the pardon would send a signal to the Saudi
judicial system.

"We would like to not see a repeat of cases like this. If
the king's decision has an impact of that kind on the thinking
of those in the Saudi judicial system, I think that would be a
good thing," Casey told reporters.

U.S. President George W. Bush said this month that King
Abdullah "knows our position loud and clear" on the case. Saudi
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said in Washington last month
he hoped the ruling would be changed.

Al-Jazirah newspaper quoted Sheikh as saying the king had
the right to issue a pardon in the "public interest," though he
defended the legal system's "integrity, justice and
transparency."

Zoheir al-Harthy, spokesman for the official Human Rights
Commission, told Reuters the decision to issue the pardon was
taken last week in response to the controversy over the case.

The king usually issues amnesties to mark the Muslim Eid
al-Adha festival which begins on Wednesday.

The pardon represents a rare occasion where Saudi rulers
have appeared to challenge publicly the country's hardline
clerics, who have wide powers in society according to a
traditional pact with the Saudi royal family.

Clerics of Wahhabi Islam dominate the justice system which
King Abdullah said in October he wanted to reform.

Criticising the religion-based judiciary is sensitive but
the case became a national embarrassment, provoking
soul-searching among columnists over the kingdom's image.

Fawziya al-Oyouni, a women's rights activist, welcomed the
report but noted it implied the woman was still in the wrong.

"We need harsher sentences for the guilty parties, and we
want to feel safe," she said.